The Closed Circle! (IC)

[Ari]

GM

The Penitent 'heard' a long succession of featureless plains, tranquil seas, and starry skies. At last, Weissnicht answered in a more understandable fashion

<I'd say "You have no idea who you're talking to like that", but clearly you already have a perfect understanding of me, so I won't bother. Enjoy this squad of robots> it cut out a little more sharply than last time, with a slight flash of violent imagery as Weissnicht dragged his thoughts back to whatever plan he had.

The Ajax rep., startled by the abrupt mental message, stared into space, saying "I can make some sense out of this, but it will take time to work it out" after a second he added quietly "As well as some paper"

With a crash, 8 of the same kinds of robots that the Corp. Cosmos had just encountered landed on the floor, in view of the impromptu robot room. With a flicker of their shining blue eyes they advanced purposefully on the two who seemed the most obvious threat to a peaceful takeover, gun compartments opening with a soft flurry of clicks and mechanical whirrs, and ominous barrels protruding through the new apertures.

Menawhile, Steve's attack had struck air, the robot having somehow sensed the incoming punch and leaping ungainly onto one of the walls, where it turned its single eye to look at its attacker. The glowing eye widened, and a sharp electronic buzz caused the other to get instantly to its feet and swing its torso around to face this intruder. Their initial purpose was evidently on hold, until they could remove this unplanned-for hinderance!

[Raveled]

"Right." Ironclad stepped off the platform, the suit's targeting system quickly painting the various Weissbots and calculating the proper impact angle. She braced herself in a wide stance as flaps on the back of the suit opened; tiny contrails followed dozens of miniature missiles as they flew into the air, then arced towards the mechanical minions. Each projectile imbedded itself in a robot and then exploded with a thunderclap; in moments the convention floor was littered with metal scraps, and the villain's assault force was in pieces.

The heroine did a quick scan of the area, nodding to herself. "Well, those worked much better than I had hoped for." She looked up and addressed the man behind the screen directly. "If you want to give us your coordinates, we'll send the police over straight off and we can still end this civilly. Otherwise there'll be blood, sweat, and tears -- all of it yours."

[Ari]

GM

The robots had only had time to start the twist of their necks that would have brought their eyes onto the dart-like missiles before they detonated. With blasts of fire that arced over the polished floor and bursts of flailing electricity their heads and limbs went sailing off in every direction, most of them slamming harmlessly into walls, though a few got dangerously close to visitors and were caught by the suddenly lightning-swift caretaker bots. At last the last few jolts and smouldering pyres went out, and the eight would-be invaders were so much blasted scrap, the few busboys who were in the room tentatively beginning a cleamup of the sharper and smaller pieces lying around. The visitors cheered heartily at the rapid resolution and relaxed visibly, some tension having begun when the Weissbots had first appeared.

Ironclad's warning to Weissnacht was evidently heard, as the screens switched back on, showing the white-armored man fiddling with some kind of screwdriver, muttering to himself "Blasted...eh, got it..nah, that's-" he looked up for a moment "YOh! You already beat those? Meh, they're quite expendable" he tossed it aside, adding more coldly "Ironclad, I have no wish whatsoever to give myself up to the police just yet. Give me a few more minutes and I'll happily make negotiations for the safety of the people in the skyscarper, but if you think I'll fold before mere words you've got another thing coming. If you want me to surrender outright, come up and make me yourself"the screen switched back off as he turned his metal back on whatever camera he was talking into.

At that moment, the robot that had leaped onto the wall to Corporal Cosmos' right fired off a salvo of energy pellets from its various guns, which slammed into the starry guardian like a hail of burning needles! This at least wasn't quiet, and the sharp hissing retorts of the cannons could be heard at the edge of consciousness even in the robot room.

[Shofet]

The Penitent looked at the wreckage, gaping slightly.

"Well, little missy, I will say I am very much impressed."

He looked at the Ajax employee. "You work on what you can figure out for those blueprints. I figure if our friendly superbrain wrapped in a form-fittin' tank here can't figure it out, pooled resources might. 'N any case, keep me updated. I'll be checkin' in with you."

"Now as fer you, Wienerschnitzel, I've been thinkin' some more and it occurred to me. This is a probably a self-esteem issue. The metal bandage looking stuff is to hide the acne break out, the whole German accent thing is to make yourself seem more mysterious, and all this is a cry for attention because your parents are lame and the girl you liked stood you up at the prom. Am I close? I bet I am. Tell you what, sport, you turn yourself in and we can all go out for ice-cream later. My treat. What do you say, hmmm?"

Smirking to himself, he listened close to see if he could find any robots.

[VideoGeek]

"Hey, that actually stung a bit!" Steven yelled, before clapping both over-sized hands into opposite sides of the offending bot's head. Well, trying to. Instead, Steven managed to do a wildly ineffective imitation of a bigger hero's thunder-clap, which accomplished nothing. After half a moment's pause, where all were oddly still, the Corporal deadpans, "...Of course." Knowing what generally happens after a miss that ridiculous, Steven flew backwards the way he came, stopping before he hit the wall, but never turning his back on his attackers.

[Ari]

GM

The two towering robots looked at each other's sleek chrome heads, flicked their obstruction removers along their glowing blue eyes, and with one accord the brother to the one who had shot Corporal Cosmos dashed after the starry hero! It's long, thin limbs and broad hands and feet moving it with tremendous speed through the hallway...in absolute silence.

Meanwhile, the Penitent got a rather frustrated response to his mental missive. The furious voice of Weissnacht hissed at him "Listen, friend. I have no real ill-will towards you, I don't hate anyone at all, and would gladly try and achieve my goals without this violence if I thought I could. But by God you TRY MY PATIENCE!" a brief vision of blood jetting out of something came and went with stunning rapidity as the inner voice continued "First: I'm actually from Europe. Second: The armor is banded so I can replace it in strips rather than fiddling with plates, and third: my parents were very kind and supporting people. I'm sorry they'll have to probably be removed to make way for the better world, but I've no hard feelings against them at all, and as for a girlfriend; I've never wanted or needed one, so SHUT. YOUR. BRAIN-HOLE! Keep this up and I'll cut right to the chase, make you the first one to die to prove how serious I am about this!" a series of muttered snarls that formed no coherent thought followed, and at last the connection was severed again.

[Raveled]

Ironclad glanced at the Penitent. "Hm? Oh, those plans you broadcast? Let's see, I think it was..." She frowned for a moment, then snapped her fingers, quite an accomplishment with metal gloves on. "Yes! They're plans for a remote detonator! If he set the charges in the right places, he could bring down this whole building!" She shook her head. "Holding all the attendees hostage. We have to stop him!"

The armored heroine flew into the air and followed her sensors, zeroing in on the disturbance. She rolled to one side as one of the chrome robots zipped past her. "More robots? Geez, Weiss. If you wanted a booth here, you just have to rent one!" The heroine pulled up short of running into the robot's brother and instead hit it in the face with her wrist blaster.

[Shofet]

"A remote detonator! Wiserock, I'm surprised at you! We are having a stern talk about this once I clean up this mess you've made."

The Penitent took off into the air, tailing after Ironclad as she discovered the robots. Seeing that she failed to defeat the machine with a well-placed strike, the Penitent grimaced, and prepared himself to go maximum speed. Suddenly, he tore down the hallway, extending his fist to connect with the poor robots in front of him.

"Time to sweep the floor with you guys."

[Ari]

GM

With a ringing clang the armored fist bounced off of the flaring cone that was the robot's head. it didn't seem to care much.

Meanwhile, the one that had fired on Corporal Cosmos had turned and was crawlign rapidly away from the fight, towards the power station. It was readying itself for a leap across the broad gap between halways when the Penitent raced throught eh air, borne aloft by his allied repentant spirits. The robot on the wall was about to raise its arms to ward off the attack it saw coming faster than any human could, but even it couldn't react quite fast enough to guard against the incoming fist, and it went hurtling to the floor in a tangle of briefly flailing limbs scarbbling to regain its posture.

The other was even less prepared, and only managed to look behind itself in time to see impending punch before it too was sent onto its back ont he floor, electronic mind racing to get back on its feet. Or at least its hands and feet.

[VideoGeek]

Corporal Cosmos holds his position and switches settings on his gauntlets before loosing a blast of green light at the pursuing robot, and gouging a good-sized divot into the floor, instead. "Really!? Maybe I should get my eyes checked..."

[Raveled]

Ironclad twisted away from the scything attack, sending the 'bot's calculations off causing it to miss. "Hah! Need to upgrade that processor, perhaps? Deal with problems in real time! Like this!" Routing power to her servo-muscles, the heroine hauled off and hit the mechanical minion square in its chest, pushing it back several feet and denting it badly. "C'mon, open up and let Auntie Jess take a look at what you cannibalized to power this thing."

[Shofet]

The Penitent stopped in midair, dropping to the ground and skidding across the floor, digging his heels in to make him stop. He grinned, cupping his hands as he saw the robot get back up to its feet. Hellfire gathered between his fingers, and he shouted:

"KAAA-MEEEE-HAAAA-MEEEE-COPYRIGHTED!"

He let the blast go, hurdling down the hallway, and it smacked the robot, causing energy to arc from it as it shuddered and a few metal plates came loose.

"Looks like this one is almost in the scrapheap. Let's put'em down fer good so we can keep moving, huh?"

[VideoGeek]

"Oh no you don't!" Corporal Cosmos yells, flying off after the fleeing 'bot, "I'm taking one of you down, at least!" Closing the gap, he steadies himself for another shot and blasts the metallic minion square in the back with a glowing green beam.

[Ari]

GM

With a roar of the unholy flame, the robot's innards were seared and badly melted, it moved with a few sluggish jerks before grinding to a halt, its systems a mass of confusion as the damage caused overwhelmed its capacity to function. As it stood, the thing was likely to start falling apart if it tried anything risky, like moving at more than a snail's pace or using its cannons and powerful servos.

Meanwhile, the one that appeared to be the leader of the expedition quickly began leaping its way along the wall, eye fixed on the door marked with a sign warning of lethal voltage behind it. If it got to the room, it was difficult to tell what damage it would wreak. It was probably best to just keep it from getting there in the first place so nobody found out. The Corporal's cosmic attack that weaved its pure foundational energy into a destructive channel of raw power struck it squarely on its spindly back, only for the thing to manage a last-second twist that, mixed with an electric discharge over its carapace, dispersed the energy harmlessly. Turning its back on the heroes, it slid open gun ports nested there and fired a vicious salvo at Ironclad.

[Raveled]

Ironclad didn't duck. Ironclad didn't duck. Ironclad didn't roll away. She just tucked her chin into her chest and waited out the hail of plasma bolts. Inside her armor it was dark and loud, and seemed to last an eternity; but eventually the noise died down and she was left standing there, armor scorched but undented. She raised her face, addressing the roof and Weissnacht. "See," she said, "this the difference between quality, and your shoddy work."

[Shofet]

"You hear that, Was ist los? She called your work shoddy. Considerin' what I'm about to do to your robots, I'm inclined to agree."

He grinned darkly at the other robot.

"Hey, ugly! Catch!"

He summoned up his power, and threw out a bolt of unholy energy -- which manifested as a tiny sparkling orb skirting across the room at a slugging pace, and simply popping on contact with the robot across the room.

"You see, this is why I shouldn't get cocky, because this always happens to me when I do. Let's just hope Wine and Toast wasn't watching at that particular moment."

[VideoGeek]

"Y'know, I expected fighting robots to be a lot more fun," Corporal Cosmos mutters, while lining up another shot at the more able-bodied automaton, and promptly blowing a hole in the opposite end of the hall. "Oh for Sagan's sake!"

[Ari]

GM

With a dull roar of power, Steve's lance of power slammed into the fleeing robot hard enough to partially crush one of its arms, not to mention bending its main body, causing it too to partially shut down while its systems tried to figure out what was happening. With a whine of hydraulics and thrum of servos, it bent like a spider into a ball, digging its heavy metal claws into the wall, holding on for dear persistence. Clearly the fight was nearly over, as even Weissnacht seemed to be aware.

"I'm really going to have to work on their reaction times" his electronically muffled voice muttered, sending echoes throughout the skyscraper "this is just ridiculous"

[Raveled]

Ironclad stared down the robot that had tried to blast her to pieces. "You see, the problem with that," she said to Weissnacht, "is that to fix something you have to have both time, and resources. Now while prison will give you lots of free time." The heroine paused and brought up one wrist blaster, almost casually striking at the robot with a gilded beam of energy. "You aren't really going to have the resources to tinker with robots when you're locked up in Blackstone, you know?"

[Ari]

GM

With a scream of overloading curcuits, groans of bending metal, and a hiss as some strange black, viscous fluid splattered from the robot's body, Ironclad's wrist blast sent the thing flailing to the ground, its manic efforts abruptly stilled with an explosion that sent bits of it sailing past and around the three heroes, it's comrade weakly looking up at its obliterated comrade only long enough to gather what had happened.

Far off the roboticist blithely said "Quite right Ironclad, I'm fairly sure Blackstone doesn't have any killer robot teaching programs either. You wouldn't happen to know the time, would you?" he asked abruptly, while meanwhile the Penitent received, possibly by accident, a lengthy internal diatribe about how hard it was to parse satellite signals in a bustling metropolis like Freedom. It's simply IMPOSSIBLE to get the right stations on the first try he thought in frustration.

[VideoGeek]

Corporal Cosmos rubs at one shoulder briefly and leans back to (audibly) crack his back, before effusing, "Oh man, am I glad you guys are here too. I really thought I'd be doing better here. Who IS this guy, anyway?"

[Shofet]

"He's er, uh, Vicelock. Some guy with an ego complex, and, as far as I can tell... It seems to me he's preoccupied with somethin' or other. Something about satellites, which I think means he might to plan to commandeer them. Probably communications satellites so he can broadcast some sort of victory message. At least, I hope so. Last thing we need is him getting a hold of some military satellite and doin' who knows what with it."

He looked at his two companions. "We should probably stick close in any case. I figure that White's Not will probably send more of our little steel friends to try and slow us down."

"Now, as fer you, Whipstart, I figure that you are probably doing something that requires a high amount of concentration, and someone interupting you might make you lose your place and have you start from scratch again. So, that leaves me with only one thing to say: Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?

NYEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

[Ari]

GM

A veritable waterfall of obscenities in several different languages followed close on the heels of "the most annoying sound in the world", arguing quite strongly for its title, as did the rapid succession of violent pictures, mostly of things being thrown into spike pits.

After several seconds the furious swearing gradually ceased, and Weissnacht's mental voice raged over the bond between minds <STAY RIGHT THERE! Stay right there, I'll send an electric shock through that floor like every drop of your blood is-> he suddenly got a lot more hesitant <Will he even have blood? I'll have to vivisect the thing once this is over...> the flood of mental imagery was now mostly centered on circuit boards, with a brief flicker of many gleaming blue eyes.

His actual voice, much calmer and stronger over the intercom, announced to the quite relaxed visitors, some of whom had wandered out into the hall to congratulate the heroes; with a slight buzzing tone in the background, the accented inventor declared grandly "Pilgrims to the technology expo! I will have you know that momentarily, we shall be cut off entirely from the outside world. And YES, I DID THINK OF THE FOUNDATIONS TOO, I am NOT AN IDIOT!" he briefly ranted, the electronic smoothing of his voice failing to disguise his real irritation. After mastering himself he went on "If anyone here wishes to see the outside world again, by all means, ask! Just come on up to the roof, and we'll talk terms. Of course," he added casually "I will have to speak with whoever comes to demand your release as well, and your requests and what I'll have to to in order to retain my bargaining position might..run at cross-purposes. Weissnacht out." And with a click, even the noise of the wind above the skyscraper cut out. It seemed he had nothing more to say to those within.

[VideoGeek]

Corporal Cosmos reaches down with a clamp of green light and picks up a stray robot head, tossing the macabre trophy back and forth, from hand to hand, the sudden stillness disconcerting. "So, I guess I should tell you my name, huh? That's how these team-ups work? I'm Corporal Cosmos, space-borne sentinel from outer-space! Or something. Alliteration is HARD." Corp. suddenly tosses the chrome cranium to a gawking onlooker before turning back to his fellow heroes. "So I assume I'm not the only one going up there to take care of this guy? I mean, seriously, camping out on TOP of a skyscraper? Worst case scenario, one of us falls, and I can FLY."

[Shofet]

The Penitent looked at Cpl. Cosmos, and shrugged.

"I'm the Penitent, sport. I am trying to redeem a thousand damned souls."

He levitated slowly off the floor. "But I suggest you start floating, as I think I've finally pushed Pipedot over the edge and he was threatening something about electric shocks." He looked upwards. "As for just going up there and beating him up, well, he seems to have a detonator which means I don't know if just charging in won't kill everyone in this building, which is something I'd like to try and avoid."